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Manage installed apps

pipx is an excellent tool, written in Python, providing these features (in their words, from the link):

  • Expose CLI entrypoints of packages ("apps") installed to isolated environments with the install command. This guarantees no dependency conflicts and clean uninstalls!
  • Easily list, upgrade, and uninstall packages that were installed with pipx
  • Run the latest version of a Python application in a temporary environment with the run command
  • Best of all, pipx runs with regular user permissions, never calling sudo pip install

Well pipz accomplishes the same, with nearly the same interface, using Zsh and the other zpy functions.

% pipz install tldr yt-dlp
% pipz list --all

projects     @ ~/.local/share/python
venvs        @ ~/.local/share/venvs
apps exposed @ ~/.local/bin

tldr    yt-dlp

Command            Package            Runtime
tldr               tldr 3.0.0         Python 3.9.7
yt-dlp             yt-dlp 2021.12.27  Python 3.9.7

The paths printed on the first three lines of output may be overridden with the environment variables ZPY_PIPZ_PROJECTS, ZPY_VENVS_HOME, and ZPY_PIPZ_BINS, respectively.

Animated demo: pipz install, list

Example installing an app package from git:

% pipz install 'subdl @ git+https://github.com/alexanderwink/subdl'

If you track your dotfiles, you might include ~/.local/share/python, which only has <pkgname>/requirements.{in,txt} files. With those in place, you can run pipz reinstall to get the apps back.

% zpy help pipz

# Package manager for venv-isolated scripts (pipx clone).
pipz [install|uninstall|upgrade|list|inject|reinstall|cd|runpip|runpkg] [<subcmd-arg>...]